The Miracle of the Smiths

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This is not a thread in which I (or you) say 'Hey, the Smiths were grate'. Yes, I think they were, but the value judgements were handled over on the CoD thread. What I want to reflect on is the *strangeness* of the band - the thing I have never quite got my head around about them.

When I think about Originality (cf. ILE), I often think about things that combine existing cultural features in ways that no-one had thought of - and succeed in pulling off some kind of unlikely synthesis. The Smiths seem to me a major case of this:

a) folk-pop jangly guitar tradition

+

b) Northern English camp tradition

= major incident in pop history.

The thing that is hard to understand is why or how those two things (Roger McGuinn and Alan Bennett, so to speak) came together. Just by sheer chance and contingency? What strange alchemy was going on? How much of the improbable synthesis was carefully planned? etc.

This really is a great question -- and it is, oddly, something I was
thinking about last night. I've just recently procured a car with
only a tape deck, and therefore went rummaging through all of my old
tapes for something decent; given that most of my tape-buying comes
from the high-school period, I found myself pretty well stocked on
the Smiths' back catalog. Thus it was that I was driving around last
night listening to The Queen is Dead and thinking about how,
despite their presence and influence and normalization over the
years, the Smiths really are a very weird band, even by
today's standards.

The duality you point out is an apt one, but I'd even add a few
things to that. First is the fact that while Marr is overshadowed by
Moz as the source of oddity, it's worth noting that Marr was pretty
interesting as well. He tends to get defined as some sort of
godfather of indie jangle, but listening back through those records,
you realize how all-over-the-place he tended to be, from those funky
little instrumentals he'd play live (funky in the sense that,
say, "Rubber Ring" is funky) to the occasional rockabilly turn
("Vicar in a Tutu") -- leave alone the wide swath of pop/rock he cut
through.

And then you pair that with Morrissey, whose inclinations were even
more unusual and in a completely different fashion. This is what
fascinates me about Morrissey -- the fact that he seems to be
essentially a social deviant, the sort of person who would be sitting
creepily in a flophouse or hanging around libraries scaring people
had he not been given a near-magical opportunity to be odd for a
living. The fact that his pre-Smiths life was allegedly so creepily
sheltered explains quite a bit -- the camp mentioned above seems a
direct result of the only two musical influences he claims from his
youth, those being (a) sixties British pop of the Lulu / Twinkle /
Sandy Shaw variety, and (b) glam, e.g. his New York Dolls obsession.
(That background also explains his least appealing traits: (a) his
gynophobia, common to pretty much all sheltered, awkward, creepy
boys, and (b) his homoerotic attraction to hypermasculinity in the
form of hooliganism. This all makes so much sense if we believe the
stereotypical accounts of his youth that have him basically sitting
home reading Wilde and being terribly, debilitatingly awkward and
sickly and etc.)

Add to that the funkiness of Andy Rourke and the perpetually shuffly
drumming of Mike Joyce. It's hard to tell, though, how much of this
was Marr's doing, as both of those traits seem to be intended to work
with his funky/shuffly guitar leanings.

But maybe someone who is older than me and was living in the U.K. in
the early 80s can offer a better take on exactly how odd they sounded
at the time. Surely "Hand in Glove" was a big surprise when it first
hit the radio?

They sounded remarkably fresh when they came out in 83', this was
when the dominant style in the UK was faux-soul/funk/jazz e.g Style
Council/Nick Heyward/Galaxy. Guitar rock was pretty infra dig at the
time, anybody remember rockist as an insult?

The thing with
the Smiths is that they were one of those bands, and this seemed
quite common among postpunk Manc bands, was how difficult it was to
work out what the influences were. Compare that with say
contemporaries like the Bunnymen or the Icicle Works and you'll see
what I mean. Now we know it was a mix of Twinkle and Bert Jansch.

Maybe part of the success lay in the fact that while most Mancunian
rock bands of the period were exclusively dark, the Smiths --
in yet another paradox -- managed to be dark in a vivacious, campy,
almost-ecstatic way. I mean, the intent verges on humor at some
points -- "Nowhere Fast," for instance. Echo and the Bunnymen didn't
seem to figure this out how to work this until several albums in.

Didn't Orange Juice set a tiny bit of a precedent for this sort of
thing? Jangly Byrdsy sound w/ "frightfully camp" lead singer? Of
course, Morrissey was a far stranger, more complicated, more
magnetic character than Edwyn Collins, but when I first heard
"Hand in Glove" a million years ago, I thought of Orange Juice.

Arthur: OK, fine - and I thought someone would say something like
that. I still feel like the Smiths 'programmatically' combined odd
elements in a new way.

Dr C: great answer - but Why, Dr C? Why?

Billy Dods: I have never ever heard rockist *except* as an insult.
(Funnily enough, I think I first encountered the word in Reynolds,
re. Marr, Sept 1989.)

NItsuh - thanks for the answers. Weirdness: yes. Humour: of course -
it's not a hint or a subtext, it's a big aspect of the schtick. I
agree with you, of course, re. Marr's diversity - this was one of the
reasons he stands out so much; he seems to have *seen further* than
most musicians - and also, had the technical capacity to put what he
had in his head onto vinyl. But the jangle (Byrds, if you like) think
is still central - was still the default setting - so I think it
remains central to my (bemused) question.

I like your details on Morrissey's identity too - BUT are you sure
about the 'gynophobia' thing? (I take it this means something like
misogyny - is that right?) I mean, he was also interested in feminist
texts, as far as I can remember. A conflicted character in this
regard, maybe?

As for "having a car with *'only'* a tape deck"... jeez. That's what
I call living in the World's Only Remaining Superpower.

Pinefox this was all done back in 1987 on the South Bank Show re
*strangeness* of the band and formative stages. Don't you remember
that show? references to George Formby, the unique guitar playing of
Marr, and Morrissey's unusual persona and cultural reference points.

On a related note there was an obscure Liverpool independent band
called Pink
Industry would released a fine single about Morrisse, What I
Wouldn’t Give.

The band would steer even closer to the mainstream with their next
single, a 7" of "What I Wouldn’t Give" b/w "Bound By Silence" (1985),
taken from their forthcoming album. A fantastic single, it became an
immediate collector’s item because of the cover that was adorned with
Morrissey’s photograph, illustrating a lyric in the song: "That’s my
Smiths tapes you never wanted to hear, throw them away, Morrissey in
the bin?, if it would bring you back again."

I am not to sure of the precise meaning of this track, maybe
celebrating the individuality of Morrissey - but this is one of the
finest atmospheric pop tracks i have ever heard. In way it reminds me
of Shriekback on this big hush or faded flowers - intricate softly
spoken higly atmospheric haunting music.

Pink Industry was a brilliant electronic-industrial-atmospheric
act out of Liverpool. Fronted by the charismatic Jayne Casey, they
put out three albums and a brace of singles between 1982 and 1985,
with a few compilations following in their wake. Jayne had previously
fronted two acts–seminal Liverpool punk band Big in Japan, and art-
house throwaway act Pink Military

The strangeness of The Smiths in away was put into context on this
single, how many artists have songs directly sung about them by other
artists in a deeply passionate sense - after a relatively short
period of time. This single came out in 1985 and got played a few
times on John Peel and RTE Dave Fanning shows back in the summer of
1985.

the only pink industry i know of were from liverpool, england.
the only mention i ever heard of them was in the smiths book _the
complete story_ by mick middles. described as "wild and
intelligently wacky", led by jayne casey, "fashion queen, mother
superior, and friend of morrissey".

I was HUGELY Smiths-obsessed in high school and could be found in
downtown Minneapolis trying to lay my hands on everything I could, inc.
James Dean Is Not Dead (Morrissey's hackjob JD book written when he was
very young). I had Pink Industry and Ludus records (the Ludus I *
really* wanted to be good but they had all sorts of yucky freejazz Sax
Work on them, urggh).

Morrissey was a HYOOGE feminist of the Brownmiller/Dworkin school,
which is very attractive to 16-year-old fag hags in training ('Mom, I'm
okay downtown because the gay guys in the record store keep an eye on
me.' 'Whaaaaaaaat?!?'). Linder Sterling/Mulvey from Ludus was his best
punk friend (she also designed Magazine and Buzzcocks sleeves) and the
person who inspired Cemetry Gates. Mark S is right - she did wear the
meat dress at a gig and was part of a coterie of tough feministas inc.
the Naylor sisters and Cath Carroll. She does these weird sub-Richard
Hamilton collages for art - Nick Momus and I went to see these a few
years back 'cos his friend Andrew Renton was showing them in his
gallery (now defunct). We were both a bit disappointed, Nick more 'cos
Howard Devoto failed to turn up. Linder is now partnered up with the
novelist/pop critic Michael Bracewell (who I like very much). YEARS ago
when I was in Manchester visiting friends we walked into the big posh
Waterstone's and she was managing it, so jaw/floor moment for me!

Jayne Casey last I heard was the director of the Bluecoat Centre in
Liverpool - she's artworld big there.

Although I *hated* Johnny Marr for the latter half of 1987 he (and the
Bunnymen) were *so good* at gutar it turned my head from the dark synth
stuff I liked before I discovered the Smiths. It wasn't until I
actually visited England and met the beermonster casual element of
their later fan base that I managed to calm down about love for said
group (and it did annoy me that Morrissey, who supported socialist
causes, would wind up shafting the rhythm section). When I moved here I
quickly met all kinds of music industry people who had been friends
with him at one stage or another, but there were surprisingly few
'stories' if you know what I mean.

As to the skins and cholo boys Morrissey seems to be obsessed with now,
it's definitely a case of Fancying What Is Most Terrifying/Physically
Threatening to self.

Can someone explain all this stuff to me about Morrissey in the
present. I know very little about him or the Smiths but I always hear
about some vague racial thing but never get a clear cut idea about
what people are talking about.

Morrissey has always had a fetish for tough boys because they are so
different from him. Also, fear stimulates the adrenals in the same way
as arousal, so perhaps he's mixed up the thought of getting his arse
kicked with the thought of getting his arse...well, you know. This
became a lot more pronounced after he left the Smiths. I've never
believed he has a problem with racial issues, just that in certain
areas a guy like him who is literate but not terribly disciplined or
qualified in his education might try to comment on certain Matters Of
The Day and cause misunderstanding. A lot of his writing is about
Difference, but when it's not about being a little bit strange/outcast/
queer I think it's clumsy.

Fetishising tough boys as the Other is a BIG part of the aesthetic of
gay men who grew up in the 70s and 80s; if you look carefully at the
personnel of fashion shoots etc. in Brit magazines you'll soon see that
most of the skinhead/hooligan shoots are put there by gay guys of un
certain age. In America, the peachfuzz mullet pickup boy serves the
same function to designers like Jeremy Scott and writers like Dennis
Cooper.

Morrissey now lives in Silverlake in LA, big home of fanciable cholo
boys. Most of the gay guys I know who've lived there think they're cute
because of the unattainable aspect. Note to LA cholo boys with a
sensitive side: if you fancy a sugar daddy, you'd have thousands to
choose from.

Rockist as an insult - used IIRC by a number of different factions in
different ways. For example, by new-rom/synth poppers against ALL
guitar music, OR as Billy says, by soul-jazzers in a similar way, OR
indie-guitar fans (EATB, Smiths, Cocteaus) against TRAD-guitar music
(pub-rock, metal, heavy-rock). What was REALLY infra-dig at the time
was the guitar SOLO, rather than the guitar. Just about anything with
a solo was automatically 'rockist'.

On to The Smiths. I'd say the single biggest 'miracle' about the
Smiths is that somehow Johnny Marr firstly 'clicked' with an oddball
like Morrissey, and secondly, that he was able to find a way to
accomodate and harness Moz's eccentricities within a viable working
band. This is based on evidence from Johnny Rogan's book (Morrissey
and Marr : The Severed Alliance) and a few conversations with
Smiths/Morrissey insiders. Marr's genius as a guitarist and arranger
is evident, but I think it's even more incredible that he managed to
work with Morrissey for 5 prolific years before the inevitable
falling out.

Part of this is in the basic practicalities of song-writing. By all
accounts Morrissey's words would often appear in different places in
the arrangement to where Marr had expected (verses became middle 8's,
or Moz would sing across a transition...etc). This may account for
the way that many Smiths songs don't have a normal structure or
easily identifiable chorus, especially the earlier material. This
lack of concern for (or lack of knowledge of..) conventional forms
(on the part of Morrissey) helped a great deal to set them apart from
the rest. It probably loosened-up Marr from some of the more trad.
influences which he might have been tempted to copy.
So, I'd say that in terms of FORM, little was planned, at least
initially.

Of course we wouldn't be bothering to think/write about this if it
were not for the startling subject matter and language of Morrissey's
lyrics. In some ways it's quite amazing how you can make such an
impact by speaking so directly. Then again think how contemporaries
like Ian McCullough were still largely using rock-trad language
inherited from The Doors, Lou Reed etc.

Possibly Morrissey's most staggering achievement is to draw on so
many largely untapped sources of language to weave togther his words.
Camp humour, pathos, Northern dourness, everyday sayings ("The devil
will make work for idle hands to do"), heroic superiority (" We may
be hidden by rags, but we've something they'll never have"). Sure,
you can find examples of each of these around the place before the
Smiths, but no-one had ever integrated them into a coherent WORLD
before.

Someone asked what initial impact the Smiths had. I remember
listening to a 7-inch of "Hand in Glove" when it was released and
liking, but not loving it, immediately. I remember spending a lot of
time with it trying to figure out exactly WHAT was so different about
it, as did a lot of my friends. It definately made an impression, but
didn't knock us flat. I guess it was just a tantalising glimpse of
Morrissey's world. I saw them live at the Lyceum with Howard Devoto
(3rd London show?) and it was clear that something big was coming,
even though the set still relied too heavily on B-grade stuff like
Miserable Lie and Hand That Rocks The Cradle. When "This Charming
Man" was released my friends and I hated it! Friend NG's
comment "They've turned into The Farmer's Boys" summed up our initial
response to the chirpy hi-life guitar, the jaunty swing of the beat,
and the camp lyrics. I still think of this comment every time I hear
TCM. I'm not sure whether the album came next, or the "What
Difference Does It Make" single, but from that point you couldn't
ignore them.

I can't dispute that The Smiths were, as Pinefox puts it, a major
incident in pop history. Somehow, I rarely play them these days, and
I struggle to enjoy them as much as I once did - I get the impression
that history has not been totally kind. I'll dig out a couple of
albums tonight and try to make sense of these thoughts.

Hans - around the time of 'Your Arsenal' , Morrissey began to
drape himself in the Union Jack while performing, and often
talked abt how much he loved skinheads. His song 'The
National Front Disco' contained the line "England for the
English", apparently a quote from the character the song is
about; an earlier track called 'Bengali in Platforms' included the
line "life is hard enough when you belong here", suggesting that
the Asian fashion victim of the title did not 'belong' here (here =
the UK.) Morrissey was accused of racism by the music papers,
a charge he denied as ludicrous, but which he refused to refute
in detail.

This wasn't the first time that the music papers branded Moz a
racist. During The Smiths heyday, NME soul boy Paolo Hewitt (
IIRC) claimed that the song 'Panic' was racist, because the line
"burn down the disco, hang the blessed DJ" was implicitly an
attack on black musical forms like disco and funk, and talk of
hanging recalled the language of the lynch mob. Moz also
famously said that "All reggae is vile".

More generally, Moz has always lamented the death of England -
or his vision of England, shaped by kitchen sink dramas, camp
comedies, mods and rockers violence, images of rundown
seaside towns etc. An England corrupted by outside influences,
chiefly American consumer culture (ironic considering that Moz
now lives in the USA). In this way, Moz can be seen as part of an
English socialist tradition that streches back at least to Orwell -
the working classes have been seduced by the empty, gaudy
trash of an imported culture that has cut them off from their
'authentic' roots and 'heritage'. Yet at the same time, Morrissey
worshipped The New York Dolls...

Basically, the contradictions are endless... 'For what it's worth', I
don't think Morrissey is or was a racist, but his obsession w/ the
nature of Englishness, his indifference to dance music, and his
previously mentioned homoerotic fascination/loathing for the
bully bad boy, did drag him into some pretty murky waters. But
Ironically, at the height of Moz's flirting with fascism period, he
was booed off-stage by racist skinhead Madness fans who
hated seeing their beloved Union Jack soiled by Moz's poovery...

LA is chocka with mourners for Merrie Olde Ingerland. Also full of
champagne socialists who loathed Thatcher/Major and couldn't be arsed
to subsidise either.

I always had the idea that Britain in the 50s and 60s had this nice
can-do attitude when all the trad class distinctions were starting to
erode (well, if you were a clever working-class angry young man). If
you got involved in the music biz in the 80s you'd have been seriously
disabused of the notion that Britain was on its way to better, more
egalitarian times.

I should explain the "gynophobia" tag, above, because it's not
necessarily exclusive of the capacity for feminism -- it's more of a
personal / emotional tendency than a political or intellectual one.
What I'm trying to get at is the all-consuming fear and loathing of
women and heterosexual acts on that first record. Most explicit
in "Pretty Girls Make Graves," but hinted in the squalid depiction of
sexuality in "Miserable Lie" and pretty much all over the place -- I
assume you guys know what I mean. I'd tag it as a fear of sexuality
in general if not for the fact that that fear is a lot less prevalent
with regard to men.

I always read it as 'urrgh! breeders!'. Not in the pejorative sense
that really queeny guys use, just the annoyance with some kind of
biological inevitability and/or shagging just because it's there. But
yeah, you're right, Nitsuh, the only woman that ever made Morrissey
squirm ever after was old Maggie T.

1. I like the qualified points that Nitsuh and Suzy have just made -
that sounds about right to me.

2. Like I said, this is not meant to be a thread re. the Smiths =
grate or rubbish - so with respect and all that, I don't see Jack
R's, or Dave Q's comments, as very relevant really. (There's a C/D
for that.)

3. I like Cockfarmer's post. Also DG is on the money here.

4. Martian: yes, I saw the programme - which has never been very
highly rated - years ago. You seem to be saying that I don't have a
clue about the BASICS about the Smiths. What I'm trying to say,
rather, is that once you have all those basics, it's still hard to
make it all add up.

5. Suzy is right re. otherness, boot boys, etc - in detail.

6. Dr C: fantastic post: I agree with almost everything you say
(until towards the end), and I (think I) know what you mean about
initial reactions and the way you go back to them later (ie: still
thinking about 'TCM' in terms of initial rejection). (Maybe initial
reactions have something going for them.) I totally agree with you
re. Marr holding things together (ie, how did he cope? etc), and the
('accidental'?) oddity of the structures (*this* is the kind of thing
that no-one ever seems to get to discussing, for one reason or
another - though it's BASIC to what the band had to offer).

Andrew's comments are uncanny, because I was thinking about that very
thing earlier today. Basically, dogmatic mid-80s Smiths fandom as I
see it was the *last breath of Hoggartism* (after Richard
Hoggart, "The Uses of Literacy", 1957, specifically its comments on
rock'n'roll and coffee shops) before it suffered the twin
mortifications of the collapse of Communism and the rise of MTV
Europe. "Panic" and "Bengali in Platforms", viewed together, are a
genuine reinterpretation of the spirit of Robert Blatchford,
something that fascinates me although I don't really think it makes
any sense today.

I don't really have anything else to say, except that I'm
playing "The Headmaster Ritual" at the moment and it still sounds
pretty special to me, though obviously intensely related to a social
set-up now long vanished.

God, "Panic" sounds stranger with every year that passes: I don't
know whether the Pinefox will agree with me, but I find it their
strangest, weirdest, most pathological single, their most passionate
yet their most doomed. But I don't think it would have sounded like
that in 1986: it's just that the more Britain changes year by year,
the more cosmopolitan and hedonistic it becomes, the more it seems
like an anthem raging hopelessly against the tide. Time has
made "Panic" sound vainglorious: the question is - from someone far
too young to understand these things 15 years ago - did it *always*
seem like that?

linder, CC and the naylor sisters — tho some
are loosely speaking active non-queers — all
i think dwell proudly at the anti-breeder
end of the feminista arc (some it is true at
the anti-morrissey end of the FA possibly
also)

The only time I ever wrote a letter to a music paper was to say please
don't hand the world's biggest Tamla/Motown fans a white sheet and
burning cross ensemble for not liking reggae or S. Wonder's I Just
Called was when Panic was released. I seem to remember the impetus for
Panic was Steve Wright playing something TOTALLY INANE after the first
Radio 1 bulletins about Chernobyl.

A few years later, of course, the clubs were in thrall to dance music
which did say something to people about their lives.

So many interesting points. Dr C your memory of rockist as an insult
tallies with mine. There seemed to be three strands to it and both
were subtly political. One was a throwback from punk i.e guitar solos
were self aggrandising muso wank and distracted from the *message*.

The other was rather more complicated in that it was thought
that rock music was aggressively male, white and reactionary. That
led to the favouring of soul and jazz as a role model. Not just
because the music was good (even though much of it is of course) but
because it was more authentic (compared to the pure pop which
dominated the charts the year before)but also because it was thought
that working class yoof in Thatchers Britain could identify/empathise
with the struggle of black music/civil rights as if by osmosis e.g
Style Council/Redskins/Housemartins.

The other was of course
sexual, guitars of course being phallic symbols they tended to
frowned upon unless used in an art school influenced form (Bunnymen)
or the floppy fringe brigade (Aztec Camera/Lotus Eaters/EBTG) So
Moz’s asexual prescence was just dandy. I remember one of the Fine
Young Cannibals saying quite seriously anyone who listened to Jethro
Tull must be by default a fascist. Strange times. Thank god the Sonic
Youth/JAMC/Sample culture were just around the corner.

I think
Panic stands up better than a lot of other Smiths songs, stealing
chunks of Metal Guru is no bad thing of course. It doesn't sound like
raging against the tide (too joyful) but more a call to arms against
mediocrity. The echo of the provincial towns sounds rather quaint
now, I can't imagine anyone else singing the praise of Carlisle when
you've got the delights of London or NYC to write about. I thought
hang the dj referred more to the banal smashie and nicey crew who
dominated radio at the time, rather than club culture.At the time
though he was probably justified as it was post disco/hi-NRG boom of
the late 70's/early 80's but pre acid house boom of 87/88 (which I'm
sure Moz loved).

I never got to see the Smiths unfortunately. I did see the Farmers
Boys, though it’s not something I brag about. (Did you know exec
producer on the Farmers Boys lp was Pete Waterman-it's not something
he brags about either).

"something totally inane" - yep, it was just after the first reports
of Chernobyl, and the track concerned was Wham!'s "I'm Your Man".
I'm not sure that Steve Wright was on air at the time, though: it
would ideally have been Gary Davies, a fellow Mancunian who arguably
attacked the Hoggart / Blatchford tradition (to which Moz aspired, as
I see it) simply by existing, dressing and speaking like he did.

"Hang the DJ" referring to Smashie and Nicey gang - yes, absolutely,
but that doesn't detract from the essential nostalgia of "Panic" as a
song: a call to arms, absolutely, but also a rather pathetic, blunted
one, the children's choir sounding like a vainglorious echo of post-
war formality, and I can't help but hear a desperate fear for the
future behind the line "Could life ever be sane again?". The strange
thing is, though, I think the song is *brilliant*, but what it is
based on (broadly, to my ears, desire for a unified working class not
indulging in hedonism and love for American pop culture) could never
be recaptured, and that is where the brilliance comes from: the
desperation to achieve something that could never actually happen,
never more perfectly expressed in pop. It isn't that nobody would
write about provincial towns now but that provincial towns *just
aren't like that anymore*: even compared to 15 years ago, they are as
given over to hedonism as anywhere else and totally unresponsive to
any remaining echoes of puritan socialism (or puritanism or socialism
in any form, really). This is, I think, why Morrissey lives in LA:
he would rather not live in Britain than in a Britain unrecognisable
from his idea of Britain.

Essential ambivalence is what I love best about the Morrissey of that
time, and his worst moments ever have been his most obvious: I
personally think of "A Rush And A Push And The Land Is Ours"
(specifically "It has been before / So it shall be again") as
referring to the Wilson government / social democratic leadership
compared to the Thatcher era, but I can quite see why certain people
after the Union Jack / "NF Disco" episode interpreted the song to
mean something rather less positive (I don't think that
interpretation is *right*, of course ... the ambivalents of pop have
to be prepared for occasional stupid misinterpretations: it goes with
the territory).

I think you've hit on the essential dilemma of Morrisey in that he is
passionately in love with the idea of the working class, hence the
iconic sleeves Pat Phoenix/Viv Nicholson etc, but ultimately it's
unrequited love. I hate to quote Pete Waterman but as he said 'real
people (i.e working class) don't listen to his music', that's not
entirely true of course but there is a large nugget of truth in his
statement. Liam Gallagher, ironically a big Smiths fan, is probably
more representative of the working class audience than
Morrissey.

Working class culture by and large has always been
hedonistic in nature, that's why it's been despised by the liberal
cultural elite, some of it only recently getting approval e.g middle
classes new love of football.

The other thing is the
provincial towns Morrissey loves may have existed at some point, but
they had already disappeared, or were disappearing, by the time Panic
was written. I was frequently in Dundee at the time and although
there may have been socialism I don't remember much in the way of
puritanism (but that's quite a different story).

This is all quite fascinating when compared to the politics of Smiths
fandom in the suburban U.S., which was far more simplified: nobody
liked the Smiths; if you did, you were therefore odd and effeminate
and either To Be Shunned or To Be Beaten, in extreme cases.

Like others have said, this is getting really interesting and
involved. Allow me to respond again.

Robin C:

>>> mid-80s Smiths fandom as I see it was the *last breath of
Hoggartism*

In large part, yes, this is right. Maybe the M thing about 'illness'
(hearing aids etc) stuck out, though? Also re. gender - cos M
was 'sexually ambiguous' - and Hoggart's book doesn't have much place
for that. (This is the puritan vs bohemian split in M, if you like.)

>>> I don't know whether the Pinefox will agree with me, but I find
it their strangest, weirdest, most pathological single, their most
passionate yet their most doomed.

Yes - kind of. But like you, I don't think that detracts from its
enjoyable fascination. A strange thing, rarely mentioned, is that
it's VERY SHORT!

Suzy:

>>> A few years later, of course, the clubs were in thrall to dance
music which did say something to people about their lives.

Well - different perspectives here, surely. From the POV of dance
fans (or whatever) in 1986, dance music presumably *did* say what
they needed; just like (I imagine) it does for dance fans now. It
doesn't for me, of course - but you knew that.

Dods: I like the points re. rockism (personally I *love* guitar
solos, of course).

>>> The echo of the provincial towns sounds rather quaint now, I
can't imagine anyone else singing the praise of Carlisle when you've
got the delights of London or NYC to write about.

Well. Just you wait. One day.

>>> It isn't that nobody would write about provincial towns now but
that provincial towns *just aren't like that anymore*: even compared
to 15 years ago, they are as given over to hedonism as anywhere else
and totally unresponsive to any remaining echoes of puritan socialism

Hold on - there seems to be an assumption developing re. M's attitude
to provincial towns (which as said in past I find fascinating - the
towns, I mean, not the attitude). I don't see it that way. I think he
is just *listing* for PANORAMIC EFFECT: it's ALL ENGLAND APOCALYPSE.

>>> The other thing is the provincial towns Morrissey loves may have
existed at some point, but they had already disappeared, or were
disappearing, by the time Panic was written.

But those towns are still there! Yes, they've changed - but for the
better *as well as* the worse, I'd guess (like most things:
dialectics as usual).

Back to 'strangeness': this is still the key thing for me. Robin C
pinpoints an aspect of it re. the children's choir - an element of
sinister otherworldliness, or whatever. Plus, the comic (and retro)
eccentricity of Marr's *music* (cf Nitsuh earlier) as well as the
unseemly violence of the lyric (M as embarrassing ranting party
guest - back to Nitsuh earlier, again)...

It would be interesting to know if 'Panic' could ever have gone
another way - if there were more elaborate lyrical drafts that
spelled things out more fully (a la 'Queen Is Dead'). But I'm
clutching at gladioli, I know (I know, I know...).

Billy: the other Mancunian axis that comes to mind as more
representative of genuine latter-day (i.e. post-Thatcher, or rather
*irrevocably-changed-by-Thatcher*) Northern working-classness is the
Roses / Mondays (the Mondays especially) wing which was in the
ascendancy as Morrissey's solo career declined (held back, as I saw
it, by long gap between first two proper solo albums causing loss of
momentum: instructive that none of his four 1991 singles, from the
Our Frank era, made even the Top 20 whereas the first four solo
singles all went Top 10). For some reason (and I was actually
thinking about this before I knew this thread existed!), I
associate "Madchester Rave On" outselling "Ouija Board Ouija Board"
five to one in Manchester HMV with the fall of Communism and the
emergence of MTV Europe: not only concurrent, but a similar,
definitive (or so it seemed) victory of hedonism over any remaining
hints of, perhaps foolhardy, ideological conviction.

Pinefox: shortness of "Panic" something that occured to me earlier.
I personally relate it to the classicism / nostalgia of the song:
write a song that evokes provincial towns as they perhaps were around
1963 and make it the length of pop songs of the time (during the
British New Wave cycle of films from 1958-63, it wasn't unknown for
songs of less than two minutes in length to make Number One: Adam
Faith's "What Do You Want?" springs to mind).

The towns are still there, of course, and what is fascinating is just
how much they have changed, as anyone who makes a habit of visiting
places that feature in old films, TV series, photographs etc. will
know. One of the great fascinations of modern Britain is comparing
the general informality and hedonism of these places *now* (main
exception that comes to mind: Winchester, especially in winter) with
images of how they once were. Peter Hitchens was, perhaps for the
only time in his life, spot on when he said that traditions can be
destroyed just as effectively when you leave the buildings there but
chip away at the ideas and feelings that gave them meaning, as when
you tear down the buildings themselves. This is the key to how
Manchester - and, I suppose, provincial Britain generally - has
evolved in contradiction to and refusal of Morrissey's vision of it.

Strangeness: exactly. Listening to "A Rush And A Push ..."
and "Death of a Disco Dancer", what comes out is how great they are
*as sound*. I'd previously concentrated on Morrissey's words, but
what stands out now is how great a *band* they were. For the first
time, "Disco Dancer" sounds to me quite as apocalyptic as the title
track of "The Queen Is Dead", an epic melodic grind for long after
Moz himself is unheard.

I just remember hearing "Bigmouth Strikes Again" because my friend
brought it into 11th grade English class to play and thinking "What a
goofy song," so I larfed. Didn't actually get anything by them until
two years later, 1989, and never saw any videos or anything or TOTP
appearances, and didn't grow up in England, so they just always were.
And pretty good, too.

Lucky me, nobody would ever have beaten me up at school for what music
I liked. This was also before high-school age kids got down with the
concept of Euro = insult. The few sarky comments I got - always, always
from metal-loving future gas pumpers and their girlfriends - were
inevitably met with this sort of scenario:

(Suzy and Nellie are sitting in the hall in front of their opened
lockers which are littered with artfully arranged pin-ups from British
and Japanese music mags. They are clearly deep in conversation)

PASSING METALHEAD BOY does a double-take when he sees locker gallery
full of Men Wearing Makeup. PMB: "What is that faggot shit?"

...see, they didn't stand a chance so no real hassle. Mallrat girls who
had 'hair' comments were encouraged to look five years into the future,
where if they had not managed to reproduce with a football player, they
might actually HAVE the haircut I was sporting that day. In the same
future I would of course be having my hair cut where I would never have
to look at their bad style ever ever again. Besides, there weren't
enough of US to form an actual Breakfast Club-type subcult so we were
very confusing for THEM.

Robin sez : "Morrissey's solo career declined (held back, as I saw
it, by long gap between first two proper solo albums causing loss of
momentum..."

Not sure I agree. Sitting out Madchester was probably a wise move,
but the single biggest cause of the decline HAS to be the fact that
Kill Uncle was so spectacularly awful. Virtually EVERYTHING which was
good about the Smiths had gone by now. (By the way, except for the
singles, I really don't like Viva Hate either).

Somehow that knife-edge balance between camp, misery, humour,
nostalgia and arrogance, which he kept throughout the Smiths career
is out of whack much of the time. Too much or too little of any of
these carefully-juggled elements resulted in nonsense like King Leer,
Bengali in Platforms, Little Man What Now, Late Night Maudlin
Street,Alsatian Cousin etc. Maybe the lay-off before Kill Uncle gave
him too much time to think about how and what, rather than doing what
came naturally in The Smiths. Working with hacks like Street, Langer
and Nevin couldn't have helped much either.

Arthur makes a good point about a possible precendent in Orange
Juice, and for the Postcard singles, it makes good sense. Simply
Thrilled Honey and Blue Boy in particular have that odd structure and
slightly distanced feel which marked out Hand In Glove. I sense that
Collins was a much less complex character than Morrissey, and
consequently less interesting. The post-Postcard era showed that he
had nothing much to say.

Hold on - there seems to be an assumption developing re. M's attitude to
provincial towns (which as said in past I find fascinating - the towns, I mean,
not the attitude). I don't see it that way. I think he is just *listing* for
PANORAMIC EFFECT: it's ALL ENGLAND APOCALYPSE.

I agree, pf. It's funny - I was thinking of posting a thread about Panic a while
ago and thought better of it. What I was going to ask was 'what does this song
MEAN?' Or more specifically, what do the chorus and verses have to do with
one another? But then I decided it would make me look stupid. Of course I
understand the connection, but it struck me as a perfect example of
Morrissey's (Smiths era) approach to songwriting- so many self-contained
lines/notebook fragments/twisted aphorisms that somehow end up
constituting a lyric. If someone asked me what situation Morrissey was
describing, or point he was making in a lot of Smiths songs I'd have no
straightforward answer. He changed style a bit on Meat is Murder ('The
Headmaster Ritual' is perhaps his best sustained direct, transparent song) but
he never really lost his predilection (knack?) for opaque, ambiguous, cut and
paste lyrics (torrents of words falling over themselves) until a little
way into his solo career.

A thing that rarely gets mentioned: Mick Middles' book (yes, I know it's
terrible) insists that when Morrissey & Marr started out, their plan was to
become a songwriting team, not a band. Does anyone know if that's true?

I think PF's urge to put the strangeness down to such a simple
synthesis is perhaps an oversimplification. But if we go along with
it for the time being, then I think we have to agree with Arthur and
Dr. C that Orange Juice pulled off *a* synthesis of similar elements
some years before, if not precisely the same synthesis.

That begs the question what was different about the Smiths. I would
tend to argue that, musically, they were *less* strange than early
Orange Juice: a fuller sound, less angular and difficult, less
scratchy. Which is to say, I suppose, that they were more palatable
to a pop/rock mainstream. I recall very well hearing "What Difference
Does It Make" and "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now" on Radio 1 on the
bus to school. I can't imagine any of those first few OJ singles
making it onto the breakfast show.

There's also clearly a big chunk of J. Rotten in the Morrissey
persona: that ill, contrary outsider bit, handing down his crushing
barbs with total disdain. I suppose you could argue that, musically,
the Smiths were the first band in a musical generation to consider
themselves nothing to do with punk (and punk as just a detail of
history). They made themselves palatable to punk-obsessed likes of me
by the Rotten-ness of SPM. Just a thought.

To hell with you both. But neither of you clowns has anything on my
friend ML who went to England in 1979 and ended up seeing Joy
Division. With OMD opening, when they had long hair and wore robes.
Astounding!

I can see similarities with Orange Juice but I think the reason why
they didn't sound as startlingly different as The Smiths is because
Edwyn Collins was (at the time) one of those singers who sounded as
though they listend to nothing but David Bowie. Who cast a long
shadow over early 80's pop.

The one act who no ones mentioned
is The Buzzcocks. If Morrissey has any antecedents it's surely Pete
Shelley, slightly effette, vulnerable impassioned delivery, dry
Northern sense of humour and a knack for a memorable phrase. It makes
me think that all the talk of Moz is slightly misplaced and what made
them sound so unique is not Moz but Johnny Marr.

>>> For some reason (and I was actually thinking about this before I
knew this thread existed!), I associate "Madchester Rave On"
outselling "Ouija Board Ouija Board" five to one in Manchester HMV
with the fall of Communism and the emergence of MTV Europe

Put that way, it sounds odd - but I think your overall generational
point is valid.

>>> shortness of "Panic" / classicism [60s]

This is a fine point, which goes for other Smiths records too, of
course.

>>> Peter Hitchens was, perhaps for the only time in his life, spot
on when he said that traditions can be destroyed just as effectively
when you leave the buildings there but chip away at the ideas and
feelings that gave them meaning, as when you tear down the buildings
themselves.

Hm... but was he 'wrong' at the same time as being 'right'? I hope so.

Dr C:

>>> but the single biggest cause of the decline HAS to be the fact
that Kill Uncle was so spectacularly awful.

I agree - but Stevie T will tell you, I think, that it was 'Ouija
Board' which summarized decline !

>>> (By the way, except for the singles, I really don't like Viva
Hate either).

I do. I agree that a balance has been lost, but that record is close
enough to the Smiths - close enough to the flow - to retain much of
what what M had then, I think. (I still think it the best solo
record.)

>>> Working with hacks like Street, Langer and Nevin couldn't have
helped much either.

This is true. Actually there is a whole separate discussion to be had
re. the influence of Langer & Winstanley on the records of Morrissey,
Costello and... Lloyd Cole!!

D Nick: you are very, very on the money - loads of money!

>>> What I was going to ask was 'what does this song MEAN?' Or more
specifically, what do the chorus and verses have to do with one
another?

This was what preoccupied me after I'd left the thread yesterday. And
I realized that I had let myself forget my original sense of the
song. What happens in the song - let D Nick take up the point again -

>>> it struck me as a perfect example of Morrissey's (Smiths era)
approach to songwriting- so many self-contained lines/notebook
fragments/twisted aphorisms that somehow end up constituting a
lyric... but he never really lost his predilection (knack?) for
opaque, ambiguous, cut and paste lyrics (torrents of words falling
over themselves) until a little way into his solo career.

This is terrific stuff - so basic, yet so little recognized (it often
seems). Anyway: Panic seems to me to be a *yoking of 2 ideas*:

1. REVOLUTION IN THATCHER'S BRITAIN - it's happening all over, kids!
The miners' strike may have failed, but look at this fantasy!
Violence is the only answer to our rulers!...

2. WE DON'T LIKE DISCOS / DANCE MUSIC - extended to 'burn down' idea,
this seems like the same idea as #1. But really it's a much narrower
Morrisseyesque fantasy.

In yoking the two he left the impression that the whole song was
really about #2 (which emerges halfway through); whereas really I
feel that #1 (very 80s, very Red Wedge pushed to extreme, in a way)
is the key, and drags #2 in its wake.

Corroboration of a sort: Steven Wells made Panic his 45 of the week
(July 86) cos it was Politickal, like. (Nothing to do with anti-disco
sentiment, which would have repulsed him.) Think about it (as
annoying people say).

>>> A thing that rarely gets mentioned: Mick Middles' book (yes, I
know it's terrible) insists that when Morrissey & Marr started out,
their plan was to become a songwriting team, not a band. Does anyone
know if that's true?

No... I don't even recall seeing it. Anyone else?

Hopkins:

>>> I think PF's urge to put the strangeness down to such a simple
synthesis is perhaps an oversimplification.

Fine. You're probably right. I was only being 'heuristic', or
something. There is still a point there. I am not convinced, I think,
that OJ were into that *particular* synthesis.

In return, I think your post is perhaps tainted with (by?) your
perpetual post-1983 antipathy to the Smiths. To me, OJ sound (yes)
original and different in the way you say - but also less fun than
the Smiths (perhaps cos so original and different).

Dods mentions Bowie - I wonder whether my whole fixation
on 'strangeness' misses out the idea that Bowie had done all
strangenesses before? But no, I think, not quite. (Strange Pop Bowie
= other thread.)

Not to pull the discussion in a new direction, but -- is it
universally agreed that Kill Uncle was no good? I always
quite liked it -- as sort of the distillation of everything Mozzy.
It's as far as he's ever gotten from simply trying to carry on from
the Smiths, musically speaking...

Pinefox: your analysis of "Panic" *spot on* in that, like you, I
think the "BURN DOWN THE DISCO" stuff is only the secondary theme of
the song, just made to sound as though it was the central theme by
the way it is presented and put over. Maybe if the song *had* been
longer and more fully-explained, the "REVOLUTION" element might have
been given the chance, so to speak, to sound more prominent?

When he made the comments I quoted, Hitchens was to me "wrong"
because, on the whole, I don't think the traditions he cherishes were
worth preserving, but also "right" because I thought he put his
argument over very well *even though I disagreed with it*.
Certainly, on a personal level, Hitchens is more interesting to me
than any other journalist of the right, and there are some
fundamental truths he has grasped about the anti-traditionalism
(despite appearances) of Thatcherite policies, but I wonder how much
of his interest to me is down to the endless amateur sociology *and*
amateur psychology you can get out of the contrast between him and
his brother.

Dr C: that's sort of what I meant to say about Kill Uncle, but it got
lost along the way. It wasn't just the delay: all the singles off
that album were just SO WEAK: you could not imagine any of them going
Top 10 for one moment. I would concur utterly with what others have
said about Morrissey losing his essential ambiguity at that time, and
his lyrics becoming so much more boring and uninspiring (of thoughts,
of possible meanings, of anything, really).

>>> Maybe if the song *had* been longer and more fully-explained,
the "REVOLUTION" element might have been given the chance, so to
speak, to sound more prominent?

Yes, precisely. Also the disco stuff has been easier for people
(journos, whoever) to seize on over the year - where the revolution
doesn't really go anywhere. (Is this right?)

Always seemed significant to me that the 45 was released just after
Queen is Dead LP: and - more so - that live, they would follow that
title track with 'Panic', without a moment's break (cf Rank LP):
ie. 'Panic' was an extension of the political analysis of the earlier
song. OK, only a pop lyric / tune; not a terribly sophisticated
analysis, and tending more to 'adolescent' espousals of rebellion vs
the royals / hatred of the Tories than anything properly worked
through. But still - not quite the same as the 'racism / anti-disco /
reactionary' thing that has been insisted on again and again.
Possibly.

>>> I wonder how much of his interest to me is down to the endless
amateur sociology *and* amateur psychology you can get out of the
contrast between him and his brother.

Sad situation. But CH is also odd and perverse: currently writing
articles for Guardian attacking 'liberal twits' who question war / US
foreign policy. He's bright and everything, but I think he slightly
abuses his position by going for perversity and irritation of
readership too much.

>>> It wasn't just the delay: all the singles off that album were
just SO WEAK

'Our Frank' - yes. 'Sing Your Life'? Probably. But funnily enough
(Nitsuh may back me up here), two non-45s are arguably the most
compelling things here: 'Driving Your Girlfriend Home', and 'Mute
Witness'. (Thanks to Stevie T for making party tape in June 1997
which brought latter track to my stunned attention in the middle of
Covent Garden. Never since abandoned belief that track is grate,
though I'm not entirely sure I've even *heard* it since.)

Fascinating thread. Another contradiction: Morrissey was the son of
Irish immigrants (as was Marr) making all that nostalgia for lost
England, + later flirtation with British nationalism, all the
stranger.

More coming soon : Devoto's role in all this. Suzy's comment set me
thinking - I'm CONVINCED that Devoto-era Buzzcocks (or more correctly
Buzzcocks-era Devoto) is an extremely rough precursor of some of the
stuff Moz was up to. They knew each other too (via Linder?). Lots of
clues in Times-up sleevenotes, which are at home so I'll be back
later.

I think Dr. C's right about Buzzcocks-era Devoto. But only really as
regards lyrics, not in terms of melody or music. I stand by my
comment regarding J. Rotten, too, but that's no contradiction). I do
think the band's relationship with / musical break from punk is
crucial, and the reading of "Panic" which various people seem to be
reaching for above can be thought of as a punk story too: in the
lyric you see a wave of unspecified panic crystallise into a musical
battle, the fear and confusion of the initial verses collapses into
the safety / sterility of a polemic reaching no further than the DJ
booth.

Legacy? The Smiths were immensely popular amongst the people who
would become the twee end of indie, and were a central inspiration
for a generation of sensitive kids to form bands and write sensitive
songs. You could argue whether that meant twee-core was the legacy of
the Smiths either way. I think it's *a* legacy of the Smiths. Pulp
another, without question I think.

I did love the Smiths very dearly once upon a time, but I balk at
talk of them being a miracle. I can't remember thinking "that sounds
like nothing I've ever heard" (except perhaps on first hearing "How
Soon Is Now"). I can remember thinking that some of their records
were unbearably exciting. (If this comment bears the 'taint' of my
not being a raving Smiths enthusiast, PF, please feel free to ignore
it).

>>> I do think the band's relationship with / musical break from punk
is crucial

OK - I'll buy it, though I'm not sure I get it yet.

>>> and the reading of "Panic" which various people seem to be
reaching for above can be thought of as a punk story too: in the
lyric you see a wave of unspecified panic crystallise into a musical
battle, the fear and confusion of the initial verses collapses into
the safety / sterility of a polemic reaching no further than the DJ
booth.

>>> I did love the Smiths very dearly once upon a time, but I balk at
talk of them being a miracle.

I meant 'miracle' in a non-evaluative sense - which I know sounds
oxymoronic. I'm sure you think that my attempt to be non-evaluative
is 'tainted' by evaluation. Probably it is, and possibly you think
that's OK (possibly inevitable) anyway. I don't mind balking at (talk
of) miracles, but in pop terms I can't think of that many things that
deserve the term better than this lot (but possibly nothing does),
whether in evaluative or non-evaluative terms (assuming that either
category exists).

>>> (If this comment bears the 'taint' of my not being a raving
Smiths enthusiast, PF, please feel free to ignore it).

Tim - Devoto/'Cocks - yes, not the music but not the lyrics either
EXPLICITLY. To me the link is more of 'something behind Devoto's
lyrics, SOMETHING pushing him to say the things he says' which runs
through Morrissey too. The quote I was looking for from Devoto came
in Feb 1977 when he left the Buzzcocks : "I don't like most of this
new wave music. I don't like music. I don't like movements Despite
all that, things still have to be said."

Also compare Devoto's famous "I am angry, I am ill, and I'm as ugly
as sin" line from Magazine's "Song From Under the Floorboards" with
Morrissey's later preoccupations with illness and ugliness.

I go for 'a major incident in pop history' to describe the imapct of
The Smiths rather than any definition of 'miracle'. Yet, I'm still
struggling to understand what of consequence, if anything, they left
behind. Here's my best shot at asking the question - "What did the
advent of Morrissey allow artists to now do (which no-one did
before)?" 'Scuse the bad grammar.

Quick and not fully-formed thought: that lyrically, Morrissey does a
version of Devoto with the illness / ugliness / outsiderness intact
but with HD's (explicit) anger supplanted by shyness? Would that make
the Morrissey character more sympathetic than the spikier Devoto
character, and hence a likelier target for wider indentification?

Pulp influenced by the Smiths?Jarvis wouldn't hear of it.Pulp's first
releases coincided with Smiths' first album - Smiths get glory and
since then Jarvis has never spoken very kindly of the Smiths.I put
the brevity of 45s like Panic down to a focus on lyrics as opposed to
musicianship - when they run out of words,the song is over.I don't
know how anti-musicianship Morrissey was though.Listening to a song
like Shoplifters Of The World Unite there is more of a conflict -
contrast the lyrical side of group with the very rawk guitar break.

Doc C says, what did M leave behind? - etc. It's a very good
question - BUT, can't a band / artist / whatever (in any medium)
be 'great' and still NOT have a great influence? (cf, as always,
Eliot's review of Ulysses, on this point.)

My feeling is that he made possible a more conversational style - he
opened the door to new kinds of verbal awkwardness. But that is not
meant to imply that there was no conversation or awkwardness pre-M.

Damian - I agree re. the chronology, but not re. musicianship. Marr
was very much a 'musician' - not just a three-chord hack. There is
always a sense, I think, of him 'doing what's right for the record'.
You may have a point re. lyric-determines-length-of-track - but then,
what about all those records where that doesn't apply? = That Joke /
HSIN? / Queen Is Dead etc. I don't know - your argument is good, but
I think Marr *could* easily have gone on and played fabulous 5-minute
outros - *and I wish he had...*

When "panic" came out i was a d.j. I host a show in the national
italian radio, and sometime I played records in some little club in
Rome. But I was a devoted fan of the Smiths, also, and in the strange
position of listening this song from a double point of wiew. As a
devoted fan of the Smiths I loved from the first time the verse about
the "music that says nothing about my life". Yes, there's a
revolutionary quality in a song like "Panic", and it will last
forever. But there's also a shadow of sadness, the sense of change of
an era: "my life" sung by Morrisey was not "our life", nor "our
times" anymore. Morrissey sang for people that stand alone and sad in
a dark sofa of a bad disco wanting to be million light years away
from there, for people that can listen only to crap radio into their
cars, for people alone and probably sad and angry maybe. But were
they the same people that sing the "racist" chorus "Hang the dj",
like hooligan in a football stadium? I don't know. I hope not. My
answer, back then , was simple: I had to save that d.j.! (I agreed
with Paolo Hewitt, but his piece on NME was a shock for me). I put
Smiths records on the shelf and began to listen and play mainly black
music, and than house, acid house, jungle... a revolution was began,
and was made by people tired of listen "my" music into "my" room.
From now on it would be "our" music, outside, rave music... Ok, it
was many years ago from now, and I can just say that the struggle
between individual and collective values into pop music is not come
to an end. If "Panic" said something about the changing moods in my
life almost 15 years ago, I cant say "Hang Morrisey" back than nor
now.

a section of "Panic" everyone seems to forget is (IIRC) "hopes may rise in the Grasmere / but honey pie you're not safe here / so you run down to the safety of the town / but there's panic on the streets ..."

it's presumably a glancing sideways allusion to William Wordsworth, and it says a lot about the culture Morrissey came from: romantic fantasies of pre-industrial Britain, while superficially appealing, ultimately unsettle him as much as the erosion of the Industrial Revolution legacy and its replacement by rootless consumerism, because both present a vision of a parallel universe in which the culture he came from would never have existed (Manchester is often cited as "the first industrial city" and it was certainly an irrelevant backwater before the flight from the land enabled it to rapidly become an economic powerhouse). visions of the pre-industrial world erode and threaten Morrissey's urban-socialist-collectivist past, and the creation of a deunionised Manchester where Janet Jackson is a more important cultural figure than J.B. Priestley (the mortal fear which drives the main narrative to "Panic") presents the clear message of NO FUTURE. it's as if, amid bleak premonitions of his future, he's dismissing a possible solace because of the threat it poses to his pride in his past.

why don't people focus on that line in particular? it's pretty much the epitome of a deeply conservative Old Labour mindset, as though he sort of wants to find solace in an unchanging, utopian, monocultural vision of the countryside as a place to escape his hated deindustrialisation and decollectivisation and consumerisation and all-pervasive cultural hybridisation in the erstwhile socialist heartlands from whence he came, but that very Old Labour tribalism stops him (all the neo-ruralists in the last 35 years of pop culture came from pretty middle-class backgrounds AFAIK, and I find it very hard to imagine Fairport Convention coming even from the more salubrious parts of Greater Manchester, the equivalent suburbs to the Wimbledons and Muswell Hills from whence they actually came. as for such a band coming from Sheffield or Newcastle? utterly unthinkable, certainly in that generation, before the Industrial Revolution legacy crumbled and the new pick-and-mix rootlessness set in.)

I appreciate your joke, Doc. That does tend to happen, doesn't it :)? To be honest, though, my Fairport reference was more incidental than anything else: their cultural territory would have been closed off to an Old Labour purist like Morrissey. My mum is more of a socialist than I am, and grew up when old-school socialism still made cultural sense, but she's lived in places like Chipping Norton and Kidderminster, so she never went *that* way.

"Panic" is a *weird* record, isn't it? Bloody weird, to be honest. Bizarrely, its emotional extremity and call-to-arms reminds me now of Eminem's "Lose Yourself", but ***from the opposite starting point***. It's almost an anti-pop pop record, in that it's an explicit refusal of the cultural exchanges that were already, by 1986, forming 90% of the Top 40. In fact, it's probably the best possible candidate for Tom's "Berlin WHAT?" thread, not in terms of actual reference points per se, just the ethos that formed it.

I recently said (not on here IIRC) that Wham!'s "I'm Your Man" was to Thatcherism what something like Elgar's "Dream of Gerontius" was to romantic Toryism: the epitome of the ethos expressed in music. If pure Thatcherism said "fuck you, High Tories *and* puritan socialists" ... well, it was revulsion at hearing "I'm Your Man" in a thoroughly inappropriate context which inspired "Panic" in the first place, so I always imagine Prince Charles hearing Diana playing it and getting TOTALLY PISSED OFF (remember his expression when she dragged him along to see Michael Jackson at Wembley in 1988? something like that).

I'm waffling, aren't I? But "I'm Your Man" and "Panic" = the Thatcher and Scargill of pop, surely, the radical of the right and the desperate nostalgic dreamer of the left.

I just read back over the whole thread, very amazing stuff. So many interesting points it's hard to know where to begin. Forgive the length.

Mick Middles' book (yes, I know it's terrible) insists that when Morrissey & Marr started out, their plan was to become a songwriting team, not a band. Does anyone know if that's true?

This may be part mythology, but according to both "The Severed Alliance" and "The Songs that Saved Your Life" Marr went and knocked on Morrissey's door to introduce himself because he was fascinated with the Leiber/Stoller story/ethos (which mentor and later manager Joe Moss introduced him to) and wanted to carry on in that tradition. Of course there was a go-between, Stephen Pomfret, who had been in a band with Morrissey called the Nosebleeds, who was at first allotted a space in the new band and then dismissed once his work was provided. Marr was five years younger than Morrissey, so they traveled in slightly different circles, though they had met once before, at a (Buzzcocks?) concert. Morrissey was also very interested in the great songwriting tradition, Brill, and especially 60s girl groups, and at their meeting Marr was sure to play up his interest in that area also. Marr later disdained Morrissey's girl pop covers as the worst things they'd ever done though. I think the thought was that, if they couldn't make it as a band (because they couldn't find the right other members), they could at least write songs for others. This is evidenced in their frequent pleas/campaign to Sandie Shaw to let them write a song for her. But it didn't seem to go much further than that.

When I played a Smiths bootleg that I had just picked up, Gareth said, "The Smiths sound like they're all playing a different song at the same time." I had never thought of it that was, but given their background it makes sense. Marr had a dilettante background, tons of different influences, but had been most recently in a funk band with Rourke called Freak Party. And Joyce came from a punk band. These influences had to be stifled to an extent to please Morrissey. Toward the end, Marr was even fed up with their "jangly" ethos. At the time Marr was working in at X clothes shop and meeting a lot of people, creating a lot of opportunities for himself. His previous bands hadn't worked out so he set off to find himself a lead singer. Morrissey was sitting at home collecting unemployment and writing fanzine type books about The New York Dolls and James Dean. In progress were books about 60s girl groups and "Exit Smiling," a book about underrated Hollywood movie stars. These latter were shelved once the Smiths began. Apparently the songwriting process worked like this: Marr, and later his producers, would work out the tune, and then Morrissey would add music. But it wasn't that simple, if Morrissey wasn't pleased, he would ask for the melody/mood to be more like "this" and Marr was left guessing at and then striving for what would please Morrissey. One song, apparently, "Draize Train," Morrissey regarded so lightly that he could never make lyrics for it, so this was left as an instrumental. As others have mentioned above, Morrissey's very unusual phrasing would have the band revising the tune even more.

Morrissey was also apparently jealous of any of Marr's relationships outside of their own. This led to first manager and Marr friend Joe Moss leaving the group, and seemed to affect their management throughout. Morrissey didn't trust anyone in control of his business, nor was he comfortable executing the decisions himself, as much as he was making them. This left Marr in the unfortunate position of doing all of Morrissey's dirty work. Morrissey did seem to have a very crafty business head: the deal he worked with Rough Trade was 50/50 (with only himself and Marr as beneficiaries of course. He was also apparently stingy in paying his roadies. The only way Joe Moss got paid after he left was from Marr's pocket. The Smiths were virtually unmanageable, and this may explain their haphazard single/record releases. Though Rough Trade must have something to do with this also. Certain songs that should have been released as singles never were, or were too late, as "How Soon is Now," and tons of single were thrown out to the public, and then collected on a compilation to the hold the fans over until the next proper album. I don't know if this is common in the UK? This may have also reflected Morrissey/Marr's reevaluation of the 45 as superior to the album and their belief in the themselves/desire to be foremost pop chartists. The band also had serious problems with their producers. Marr bonded heavily with John Porter, and the two of them got very into adding guitar upon guitar into the mix, which Morrissey wasn't very happy with. They were guitar geeks and spent tons of time in the studio messing around. Morrissey was a purist and wanted to tone down any technological influence, "Hand in Glove" was given it's clubby sound purely by distortion, a trick the band used to get around Morrissey's edicts. Morrissey preferred Stephen Street as a producer, who he later worked with at the beginning of his solo career, and I think Marr just learned how to be a producer himself to get around Morrissey's jealousy.

What I'm trying to get at is the all-consuming fear and loathing of women and heterosexual acts on that first record. Most explicit in "Pretty Girls Make Graves," but hinted in the squalid depiction of sexuality in "Miserable Lie" and pretty much all over the place

I think the loathing isn't specific to "heterosexual" acts, just sexual. The "Pretty Girls Make Graves" is another plundering--this time from Jack Kerouak's "Dharma Bums" and probably appropriated for its sense of futility and poetic drama rather than a specific misogyny. Morrissey was extremely "pro-feminist" as a youth -- he went to meet Patty Smith (through fanzine connections) wearing a button that said "Women's Liberation." He apparently also walked around Manchester with a button reading, "Lesbian Liberation," which could not have gone over well in those days. Morrissey was very influenced by the "Fourth Sex" regarding Jack Nichol's "Men's Liberation" as his Bible. Elizabeth Brownmiller's "Against Our Will" and similar pro-feminist books as Suzy mentioned above were also very influential. "He wanted to get beyond stereotypical male and female roles. I think "Miserable Lie" addresses the futility of relationships in general. The singer said a very interesting thing on the recent doc "Importance of Being Morrissey." This is just a paraphrase, but his interviewer asked him, "Would you ever consider living with somebody?" M.: "No, I can't imagine how that would even happen really." Interview: "Have you ever considered it?" M: "No, I don't think human beings are meant to live together. I don't think people get on really."

Side note: When Marr left the band, the Smiths asked Roddy Frame to replace him. He refused.

Just read this thread, really quite something, anyway there's a couple of question I would like to ask relating to the issues raised in this thread, there is talk of Morrissey and The Smith's "legacy". I was wondering how peoples view had changed taking into account his perhaps nostalgia based comeback and obviously Smiths / Moz indebted yet achingly conservative bands reclaiming the indie / NME world. There's a notion put forward here that provincial Britain as Moz understood no longer exists but these bands seem like a studied attempt to speak to / about provincial Britain in the way Moz did. Though The Libertines who I am thinking of her got derailed by their own myth pretty quickly without bring anything particularly interesting to the table. Whilst perhaps someone like The Streets does talk about provincial Britain in a way that doesn't reek of conservative nostalgia though of course it could be argued he is part of a very different tradition and a completely different vision of Britain. The lyrics of many You Are The Quarry songs suggest that Britain no longer exists for Morrissey as anything but memory and pastiche (Come Back To Camden, Irish Blood, English Heart)? But was it ever anything but that? This is reminding me of the thread on Bob Dylan if Dylan is the link between two eras is Morrissey a sort of link between two significantly different epochs of British cultural history, from mining to malls or something. From tin mines to Tescos? Corner shops to Co-Op?

Just read this thread, really quite something, anyway there's a couple of question I would like to ask relating to the issues raised in this thread, there is talk of Morrissey and The Smith's "legacy". I was wondering how peoples view had changed taking into account his perhaps nostalgia based comeback and obviously Smiths / Moz indebted yet achingly conservative bands reclaiming the indie / NME world. There's a notion put forward here that provincial Britain as Moz understood no longer exists but these bands seem like a studied attempt to speak to / about provincial Britain in the way Moz did. Though The Libertines who I am thinking of her got derailed by their own myth pretty quickly without bring anything particularly interesting to the table. Whilst perhaps someone like The Streets does talk about provincial Britain in a way that doesn't reek of conservative nostalgia though of course it could be argued he is part of a very different tradition and a completely different vision of Britain. The lyrics of many You Are The Quarry songs suggest that Britain no longer exists for Morrissey as anything but memory and pastiche (Come Back To Camden, Irish Blood, English Heart)? But was it ever anything but that? This is reminding me of the thread on Bob Dylan if Dylan is the link between two eras is Morrissey a sort of link between two significantly different epochs of British cultural history, from mining to malls or something. From tin mines to Tescos? Corner shops to Co-Op?― elwisty (elwisty), Saturday, 19 February 2005 19:06 (3 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

One of those great old threads where I look through it years later hoping, "Man, I hope I didn't say something really stupid during this terrific discussion." And I didn't say anything at all, thankfully.

Don't like the sound of Wnr Br0$ shutting their blog down. Surely they'd have bigger fish to fry.. ah well let's hope so.

Meanwhile there's a brilliant How To Buy The Smiths article right at the back of MOJO December issue which just came out in the uk. It goes for Hatful.. as the best album, as voted for by writers and members of MOJO forum. I concur!

i can see just from the first blog post that i'll be learning a few things here. and there was me fancying myself as some kind of Smiths expert! what was Brixton Ace i wonder? never heard of it before.

Not really -- I've encountered enough people over time who are very explicitly all about Marr and the music above all else, and who really don't bother with Morrissey solo much. They're a smaller and much less visible group of Smiths fans than the expected norm, but they're there.

morrissey as a person does my head in to be honest. that night he flounced offstage last year in Liverpool after 1 song was the last straw for me. The Smiths are still my fave band of the 80s by some distance but his solo career could make a good 6 track mini album at best imho.

Morrissey has evolved an not always in ways I have found satisfying as I, too, have evolved. He has a couple of singles I like but The Smiths was the great musical love of my adolescence and that doesn't mean I have to keep following now. Ned, I love Marr but the last time he was in town fronting his forgettable band, I actually yawned and ended up leaving.

one time an old band i was in did a bunch of smiths covers for a cover band contest.

was really interesting learning their material....gave us such an appreciation for them as musicians...marr's parts are incredibly odd and difficult to learn, such a personal style of playing guitar (and frankly or guitarist had to just get it "close" esp on the more picky stuff)...

another thing that really sticks out when you sit down and learn the parts is how amazing rourke and joyce are as a rhythm section....rourke's bass lines are so melodic and invenetive, even if he's not really "showy" in a classic musicianly way....

another weird thing, is that sometimes the parts weren't the "right" number of measures...like in general in rock it will be okay well four bars of this, then sixteen bars of that, then eight bars of the chorus, etc etc...def EVEN numbers

sometimes with the smiths it would be well four bars, then eight, then FIVE, then twelve or something...it was usually apparent that they were conforming the songwriting to whatever lyrics morrissey had and not vice versa...

this is from an eno interview i read yesterday...don't know if it had been suggested prior or whether 'pop in 85' really did mean 'them, the smiths', automatically

...What do you think of modern pop music?

I rather like them, The Smiths. I think they're a good band. I think Morrissey is an extraordinarily arrogant person, especially considering that he's probably the most successful tone-deaf singer the world has ever knows. But that being said, I like his singing quite a lot, and I like their records. I could live without some of his studied miserableness, I suppose.

The gap between my general indifference towards the Smiths and my love for "Panic" is huge. I actually find "Panic" weirdly moving. Not for any specific sentiment expressed. It's more like being moved by somebody making a perfect, once-in-a-lifetime statement in a two-minute song.

just turned up on emusic. was their full discography on itunes before? in any event, it appears to be now. if it's new on itunes, also, that's -- to me -- 100X more significant than the beatles arriving on itunes.

about this Smiths Recycle site: I've downloaded the first two sets of songs. Nice to have one or two things I didn't have digitally - a Troy Tate track, 'hand in glove' live. But not sure I yet get the point of it as a whole. The main 'hand in glove' for instance seems the same as the one on Louder Than Bombs.

wow, that new update.. never thought we'd ever get to hear Heavy Track and the early run through of There Is A Light.. and suchlike. been waiting for these to leak since i first read Simon Goddard's book in 2002.

...easily the most mind-blowing was the discovery of a never-before-mentioned Morrissey/Marr song from 1982 called A Matter Of Opinion.

"Musically, it's very much in the same R 'n' B vein as What Difference Does It Make? while the lyrics are typical Morrissey and quite cynical."

It's not yet known whether the track will be released.---Update: 05/25 00:48 GMT: An anonymous person adds details from the print NME:...while the lyrics are typical Morrissey and quite cynical. The opening line is - "Sit by the fire with your books and pretend that you're active"

But they never played it live and there's just the one copy on a rehearsal tape. It's been kept quiet for nearly 20 years so from a fan's perspective this is sensational news."

...Simon Goddard's The Smiths - Songs That Saved Your Life will be published in November by Reynolds & Hearn---

i dunno what's more baffling; these unreleased tracks not leaking years back or Marr and Mozza not putting a proper box set out sooner that had them all on. either way it's amazing to have them out at last.

i dunno what's more baffling; these unreleased tracks not leaking years back or Marr and Mozza not putting a proper box set out sooner that had them all on.either way it's amazing to have them out at last.

best bits of the nu boot IMHO: the proper This Night Has Opened My Eyes and There Is A Light.. with new words! already a lot of Smiths types seem to be saying they *prefer* it to the original. strange to hear the american-ised "because i wanna see people and i wanna see life" instead of the traditional 'wanT To'.

can't quite see the fuss over the reggae-fied Girlfriend In A Coma mind.

These unreleased versions are not so mind-blowing imo. There's nothing here better than the released version, except probably 'This Night Has Opened My Eyes' which sounds nice and clean, and possibly 'Frankly Mr Shankly' whose trumpet line is very pleasing. 'Death of A Disco Dancer' might be quite engaging too but I need to give it a while to bed in. Otherwise Morrissey's an erratic enough vocalist that the alternate takes make for an interesting listen, but there isn't really much new here.

Mostly I was left marvelling at how surprisingly flabby their early stuff could be - 'The Hand That Rocks The Cradle' meanders forever, and 'Reel Around The Fountain' has no business being six minutes long. I'm sure they run through 'Rusholme Ruffians' twice.

The two new instrumentals are terrific though, great to hear the band heads-down and going at it. And 'Heavy Track' keeps up a proud tradition whereby every indie track that's ever been described as 'like Led Zeppelin' in no way sounds like Led Zeppelin.

I'm quite grateful for this effort, as well as the Joy Division one, but honestly my ears can't hear any sonic improvement. The really rare live/alt versions are fun but not critical. Still, it's a good excuse to listen to it all again.

j marr on the radio just this very minute talking about the remasters. they've gone back to the master tapes and redone them (some needed baking but apparently they sound good). he also made it obvious he's not a fan of the loudness war and there won't be any of that.

says that he "supervised" the remastering, so he's probably got a team of pros handling it. Marr said of the reissues, which will be released on both CD and 12" vinyl, "I'm very happy that the remastered versions of The Smiths albums are finally coming out. I wanted to get them sounding right and remove any processing so that they now sound as they did when they were originally made. I'm pleased with the results."

My hearing just isn't good enough to benefit from the improved sound. And how silly is it that they're including "Louder Than Bombs" AND "World Won't Listen"?? So much overlap. Why not include a new disc of stuff that HASN'T been compiled?

no different to The Beatles set really. the same in fact; shitty quality 80s CDs weren't cutting it any more. the CD box set is only £30 too, which for a fancy package of 8 CDs seems very reasonable indeed.

(i'd like to see one, see what the fuss is about, but i don't feel the need to actually own a copy, thanks stevie. besides, i still have half those mary chain and all these smiths reissues to get through...)

The This Mortal Coil box is amazing. Been delayed for more than a year because of Ivo's insane attention to detail, I was told. All the CDs are facsimilies of those Japanese CDs that are themselves facsimiles of the original album sleeves and inner sleeves, down to the stupidly heavy card. All have those Japanese language slips round each individual sleeve.

On listening to the Smiths reissues, I didn't in all honesty hear the evidence for the claims that some reviewers made about the difference from the original records.

they arrived. nicely packaged, tiny recreations of the sleeves (and stickers). (what looks like the back of the box on the amazon pictures is just stuck on with a couple of sticky labels but is easily removed.)

but they are louder and more trebly. i'm not sure i like that. (ok, have only listened to Hatful so far, and only then on the laptop)

I bought the remasters of Dark Side, Animals and Meddle and they are all amazing. I've heard the same about the clarity and dynamism of The Wall and Wish You Were Here. I'd love to hear the Immersion set but I don't have that kind of cash.

The horrible plinky cover version is the least of its crimes. I could even stand the shitty payoff, but the way it channels some kind of ghastly pastiche of every twee/innocent/nu-indie/mumblecore/shane meadows advert conceit into 90 creatively bereft seconds brakes my hart. Fuck's sake grossly overpaid ad agency, just *try* to do something original.

How long will it be before The Smiths become sufficiently retro and neutral that it would be OK for a firm like John Lewis to use the original in an ad? The people I know who do most of their Christmas shopping there (i.e. my mum and the like) still hate Morrissey: "Eh, I know you and you cannot sing" etc.

Still surprised that Morrissey/Marr agreed to this (and the This Charming Man intro earlier this year). Don't think they've ever explicitly said they wouldn't let their music be in ads, but I always thought that was implied. At the very least I would've expected Morrissey in his weird way to say no because JL sell leather coats/sofas and Waitrose sell meat.

The visuals are OK but the song doesn’t sit comfortably alongside them (since it’s not about Christmas or consumerism) and enough please-hit-me wispy cover versions please. Apparently John Lewis are planning a whole album of this muck for the season.

The ad would have been much better if Morrissey and Marr had turned up at the end as Santa and his helper. You decide who would play whom.

" There have been better bands than the Smiths, but there has never been a more perfect band, in the sense of having a distinct, deliberate, powerful aesthetic shaped by the tensions of collaboration, combined with the ability to articulate that aesthetic."

mostly on account of that blog i think the smiths are my most listened to band this year. that single version of "the boy with the thorn in his side" (prolly my fave tune of theirs) is flippin' brilliant

in the berlin program magazine tip there was a page announcing concerts of bands where i didn't even know that they still had living members. like bad company, mötley crüe, beach boys, blue öyster cult, lynyrd skynyrd, bachman turner overdrive. i was also surprised to hear that roger chapman and james taylor still have to tour...

still baffled that the so called Complete box set is missing not only 5 of the original non album single tracks but that there is STILL after 3 decades no complete BBC/ Peel session stuff available. it's the 21st century, The Smiths are regarded as the 2nd best UK band since The Beatles yet there's a Smiths *Peel session* of How Soon Is Now that isn't on CD. i mean.. words fail me.

Wonderful Woman Work Is A Four Letter WordJeanneI Keep Mine HiddenThe Draize Train

plus if one wanted a *complete* catalogue in the box you really ought to have the Kervorkian 'New York Mix' of This Charming Man, the live James cover of What's The World (from the B side of the CD EP of I Started Something..) and the alt version of Accept Yourself.

yeah the Peel London *flattens* the original and that's unreleased. the Nowhere Fast BBC sesh is also killerthere's a pretty neat summing up of all the Jensen/ Peel sessions, which ones were released and the differences between them on the Hatful.. Wikihttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatful_of_Hollow

Never Had No One Ever is not really a song, it's basically a vamp. Its position immediately after I Know It's Over is usually considered a sequencing mistake, but I think it's probably deliberate - the similarity of keys and tempos mean I hear it as I Know It's Over's looser, offhand coda. In this way, it has the same function as the similarly paced (and similarly placed) ending to Death of a Disco Dancer on Strangeways. I enjoy myself listening to it, but I am easily pleased by this kind of thing (I could listen to someone going between Am and Dm all day).

While I'm here, I want to mention another good Smiths site that I haven't seen mentioned here; Smiths on Guitar. Here is the page for Never Had No One Ever. For some songs, the site has little more than the chords scanned from the sheet music, but for others it has some fascinating videos and quotes.

There's been so much animosity on all sides I don't really see a good reason for them to reunite aside from money. Morrissey & Marr had always been vehement against the idea of a reunion until now. I could be wrong, but I don't understand the sudden change of heart.

something about the smiths still feels special because they never did a reunion. i'd hate for them to muck up the purity of their brief almost-perfect career just because morrissey and marr decide they can tolerate each other long enough to make a few extra bucks.

I wouldn't want them to reunite because the last thing they did before they broke up sucks super hard and directly informed the direction Morrissey went with his solo career; no one wants to here Strangeways-ified versions of TQID songs

mm i'd wager Pink Floyd doing it means anyone can, although Moz's "The Smiths will end in murder" soundbite from around the mid 00's always kinda raised the bar for hateful 'it won't happen' band quotes.

interestingly the final time Joyce and Rourke played with Moz (at the one-off Wolves Civic Hall gig in 88) they were suing him *already*.

Hasn't Marr been getting less and less interesting since the first electronic album though? I'd be more worried about them thrashing through stuff that was never meant to be thrashed; turning every song into 'London'.

The problem isn't so much that they'll thrash through songs or Strangeways-ify them so much as they will play them exactly as they were. As a young Smiths fanatic, I heard enough bootlegs to know that the bootlegs weren't worth hearing: the songs were played professionally and identically every time, wherever they were (the only variation came with the freedom Marr got with the inclusion of Craig Gannon, who I guess will not be invited). That said, this would be the only reunion I'd pay to see (while knowing I was getting fleeced).

i really don't care if they do this or not. we already know they're civil enough to plausibly pull the big cash grab, and none are above hawking the smiths songbook when they perform in their own combos. i love a lot of smiths stuff, but not romantically enough that mozz doing "there's a light" at the end of a show with marr would be sadder for me than mozz doing "there's a light" at the end of a show with anyone else. if anything i approve of morrissey not being able to perform new originals between smiths numbers.

funny that i heard this whole rumour story first on Stuart Maconie's show on bbc 6 this week, he wrote what is still still one of my fave quotes about them in 1993;

"It must be funny being U2. Imagine. You're the world's biggest group. Your every move receives the full glare of popular scrutiny, your every utterance is scanned for meaning and import, you can sell-out concerts across the globe, get world leaders on the phone and have million queue to buy your records. And yet in your heart of hearts you know that you weren't a patch on The Smiths. And this doesn't only apply to U2. It goes for Guns 'N' Roses, Nirvana, Bruce Springsteen and every other colossus of modern rock. Each in their own way have good things to offer but, let's be serious, they weren't The Smiths, were they?"

I like that quote too, but at the same time it makes me squirm a little in the same way that the title of this thread does. I don't believe that in the hearts of Axl, Bruce or even Bono there has even been trace of regret that they weren't the Smiths.

I don't really get what people think they'd see or experience that's more than the sum of Morrissey singing Smiths songs (as he's done over the past decade or more), plus Johnny Marr playing the songs in his sleep, looking up and smiling every few songs. Crowd cheers as if it's a moment. The whole live Smiths thing once relied on the nervous energy of those two secretly digging each other musically and stylistically, pleased to be friends...

Then again, I feel that way about all reunions. Pixies the worst example. I find the whole authenticity thing for audiences - *these* are the people in the flesh that once made this music - a bit depressing vis a vis people (young or old) that really want to be on stage together, making new music, liking each other, having fun, no heavy history hanging over it all...

i have had major smiths fever the last few weeks, brought upon by snagging nice copies of the S/T and Louder Than Bombs LPs. looking forward to going back through this thread and understanding the miracle a little better.

thanks, nice rehearsal tape which beams me back almost 30 years. i think i heard them first in 1986. this sounds pretty mellow compared to the hatful of hollow versions. in may 1983 i had just started my military service. does morrissey sing reel around the mountain there? that's a very nice version of it, lovely guitar.

I think what made The Smiths so unique more than anything, was Morrissey's voice, how he had such a melodramatic way of singing and at times almost sounded like an opera singer which was pretty unusual in mid 80s Indie. That, and his unique style of lyric writing.

That said, Johnny Marr was a top guitarist. Maybe not the most original, as mentioned he wasn't the first to do that whole jangly style, but he still wrote some pretty damn memorable riffs, and some which are very intricate. There's a video somewhere of James Dean Bradfield from the Manics, a very skilled guitarist himself, attempting to play This Charming Man and getting frustrated over constantly fucking it up.

By all accounts Morrissey's words would often appear in different places in the arrangement to where Marr had expected (verses became middle 8's, or Moz would sing across a transition...etc). This may account for the way that many Smiths songs don't have a normal structure or easily identifiable chorus, especially the earlier material. This lack of concern for (or lack of knowledge of..) conventional forms (on the part of Morrissey) helped a great deal to set them apart from the rest.

if i'm not mistaken this is very similar to how things worked, and/or didn't work, between michael stipe and peter buck.

The widely reported quote was apparently cobbled together by the press from a recent interview. Here is his actual statement (djh's point still stands):

The difficulty with giving a comment on Margaret Thatcher's death to the British tabloids is that, no matter how calmly and measuredly you speak, the comment must be reported as an "outburst" or an "explosive attack" if your view is not pro-establishment. If you reference "the Malvinas", it will be switched to "the Falklands", and your "Thatcher" will be softened to a "Maggie." This is generally how things are structured in a non-democratic society. Thatcher's name must be protected not because of all the wrong that she had done, but because the people around her allowed her to do it, and therefore any criticism of Thatcher throws a dangerously absurd light on the entire machinery of British politics. Thatcher was not a strong or formidable leader. She simply did not give a shit about people, and this coarseness has been neatly transformed into bravery by the British press who are attempting to re-write history in order to protect patriotism. As a result, any opposing view is stifled or ridiculed, whereas we must all endure the obligatory praise for Thatcher from David Cameron without any suggestion from the BBC that his praise just might be an outburst of pro-Thatcher extremism from someone whose praise might possibly protect his own current interests. The fact that Thatcher ignited the British public into street-riots, violent demonstrations and a social disorder previously unseen in British history is completely ignored by David Cameron in 2013. In truth, of course, no British politician has ever been more despised by the British people than Margaret Thatcher. Thatcher's funeral on Wednesday will be heavily policed for fear that the British tax-payer will want to finally express their view of Thatcher. They are certain to be tear-gassed out of sight by the police.

Thatcher's name must be protected not because of all the wrong that she had done, but because the people around her allowed her to do it, and therefore any criticism of Thatcher throws a dangerously absurd light on the entire machinery of British politics.

is very otm indeed. And, of course, will remain unremarked upon. (in favour of the syria/etc quote, and somthing added on about animal welfare or some such)

got the light that never goes out book at the library -- really a great rock bio so far. i'm not even a smiths die-hard (i think they're awesome, don't get me wrong), but it's just packed with good stuff.

just plowed through the fletcher bio in a couple of days - a really great read as stated above by others. i'm a little surprised at absolutely no mention of the byrds among marr's influences/interests.

I read the book last week and it has quite re-invigorated my love for the music, and watching YouTube videos of their early gigs at the Hacienda really helps underscore the notion that they seemed to emerge fully formed. Lyrically and musically, some of their earliest songs are still amongst their strongest and most affecting, imo. But reading of how they pretty much hit the ground running made me wonder if they don't dispel Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000-hour rule (ie the amount of time required practicing something before you can master it). I mean, yeah, Marr played in other bands before the Smiths, and there's Morrissey's fevered letter-writing activities, but it doesn't seem to be the equivalent of, say, the Beatles slog through the Hamburg and Cavern years. I dunno.

Enjoyed reading those "Smiths fan" stories upthread! This and "The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter" poll revived my memories... of 80s turntables and the crackle of vinyl, autumn nights and pots of peppermint tea! Too busy at the time feeling dismissed by stupid and xenophobic American writers to be truly depressed. Like, I listened to the vinyl albums with folk and oldies. After reading that stuff, I stopped reading any and all press about British bands.

Anyway, I listen to them on mp3 now but it's not the same! I guess the music doesn't go with office culture as well as it does dorm rooms and study. Morrissey dresses great and is a good entertainer. Also read he likes Buffy Saint-Marie! Honor the campfire!

Also I have my own Smiths story, but it's funny rather than sincere : this was another "not-shit" guitar band being passed around via tapes in my teenage circle....sat at party at some friend's house and we wondered what the singer looked like. "He sounds fat!" Not in an anti-fat people way, either. Like - how cool that fat people are fronting fashionable British rock bands! How punk! So we were a little disappointed.

I don't know how someone can "sound fat" but when I listen to early Smiths now I can't shake the false memories I have of fat Morrissey and smile.

Strangeways is one of a very small number of albums (possibly the only album) I've ever started out liking but then began to despise as I went further back into the band's catalog and discovered how great they used to be before that album. The entire thing screams of a band that wasn't in sync and couldn't agree on a musical direction and there are only two songs on it that I think are even worth listening to: "A Rush and A Push..." and "Stop Me..." Everything else should be erased from history.

the new smiths book said it pretty well i thought, which was that strangeways feels like a "transitional" album, the smiths awkward evolution from what they were to what they would have become, except they break up so it's not a transitional album but a sort of weird last album

Morrissey always comes off worst in discussions about the end of The Smiths - Cilla Black covers, him being a stick-in-the-mud and an asshole to boot - but honestly nowadays I'm glad we got Viva Hate/Bona Drag than a Smiths albums sounding like Electronic or The The.

yeah for all the talk of how it was marr's band and marr was the musical genius he hasn't seemed to be able to do that much w/o morrissey (which i don't really count The The or Modest Mouse as those were pretty fully formed things already)

Strangeways is divisive, even down to the tracks themselves. I've always felt ambivalent about Paint a Vulgar Picture: Beautiful guitar, but lyrically barren. Record company execs? Isn't that what bloated rock stars sing about?

Strangeways is the only one I bought originally on vinyl and it has always seemed special to me for that reason -- I also continue to have strong love feelings for Rush/Push, Stop Me, and I Won't Share You. Vulgar Picture is boring, agree. Lots of boring songs on this album, but my three favorites are not among them. lol/obvs.

Love Paint A Vulgar Picture. Lyrically, yeah you can mock Morrissey for some of the sentiments now, but the fan perspective has always been my favourite part of that song. Something about the way he sings this

I touched you at the soundcheck You had no real way of knowing In my heart I begged "Take me with you ...I don't care where you're going..."

what the hell is marr on about when he says strangeways is more brutal, harder and mre discordant? maybe the guitar on a song like i started something is rawer than on a usual smiths song but over-all i find strangeways not discordant at all. for me it has got this slightly mystical, misty feel especially a rush and a push which is such an amazing starter wth morrissey's rising voice in the beginning which mutes mysteriously into the tune. probably my favourite ten seconds of morrissey. and he doesn't even sing something...

nowadays I'm glad we got Viva Hate/Bona Drag than a Smiths albums sounding like Electronic or The The.

I <3 a lot of early solo Moz (discovered The Smiths through Last Of The Famous International Playboys!) but Getting Away With It / Electronic / Disappointed and Mind Bomb / Dusk >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Viva Hate

(and the difference between those two bands suggests that any further Morrissey/Marr work wouldn't have sounded anything like either)

(discovered The Smiths through Last Of The Famous International Playboys!)me too!!!i bought the cassingle and my mom thought i was crazy because i kept going around the house singing "have i faaaaaaaaaiiiiiled" and she was like yes, you have please stop singing that song immediately

The Smiths took a lot of stick in the 80s music press for their classicist approach, which is understandable, even though, as Taylor Parkes pointed out, their records sounded terribly of their time. But I am glad that they didn't add a fifth album with more blatantly 1989 indie-dance sounds.

I remember really loving "November Spawned A Monster" at the time and wishing Moz would do more songs like that.

Recently, I played the song again and found the lyrics incredibly cringeworthy and awful, the wordless shrieking in the bridge representing the "monster" flat-out reprehensible, and Moz's singing to be outrageously constipated and forced.

At this point, the only Moz songs from that era I have any time for are "Alsatian Cousin", "Little Man, What Now?" and "Late Night, Maudlin Street" and that's partially because I haven't gone back to them in about a decade to see if I still like them.

Had a discussion about the Smiths with my girlfriend, who now rates them as duds. Her reason is that "Marr's guitar playing sounds like a machine." I can actually see her point, although I still love them.